Retro Blast: Bathing Place Evening Dress

With the temperatures that Britons are suffering right now, I hope most of them can manage a trip to the shore...in somewhat cooler bathing attire, though. As I'm just starting a Ladies of Almack's story set in Brighton in 1810, I'm having fun picturing Annabel in a similar outfit...including the gladiator sandals, still fashionable after more than two hundred years. This post first appeared in July 2017; enjoy, and keep cool. 

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Just in time for summer...

Isn’t this a delightful print, from the September 1810 edition of La Belle Assemblee?  I mean...she’s wearing what we would call pantalettes, complete with a triple lace frill round each leg...not to mention sandals. The dress itself is surprisingly simple, buttoning up the front. It’s cute as a bug, but certainly unlike any early 19^th century evening dress I’ve seen before. Since no text accompanied it. I dug around on-line and found this in Google Books:

No. 2.—A FASHIONABLE SEA-SIDE WALKING DRESS

A gown of white French cambric, or pale pink muslin, with long sleeves, and antique cuffs of thin white muslin, trimmed with Mechlin edging; made high in the neck, without a collar, and formed in points at the center of the bosom, with three rows of letting-in lace; confined down the front of the dress with small buttons; and hemmed round the bottom with three rows of deep Mechlin lace; made rather short, and worn over trousers of white French cambric, which are trimmed the same as the bottom of the dress. A cap composed of lace and light green silk trimming, tied under the chin, with a bunch of natural flowers in front. Hair in full ringlet curls, divided in the front of the forehead. A figured short scarf of pale buff, with deep pale-green border, and rich silk tassels; worn according to fancy or convenience; with gloves of pale buff kid; and sandals of pale yellow, or white Morocco, complete this truly simple but becoming dress.

And there you have it—the reason it’s unlike any other evening dress is because it’s actually a walking dress...and perfect for that. Evidently an engraver for La Belle Assemblee took a mental vacation while working on this print, and gave it an incorrect title. Can’t you see a fashionable young lady out in society, visiting Brighton at the end of the London season, tripping blithely down the sands (not that Brighton has a very sandy beach), kicking at the waves, picking up pretty seashells, and generally having a time of it?☺

 

Recent Acquisitions: Bathing Place Evening Dress

Just in time for summer...

Isn’t this a delightful print, from the September 1810 edition of La Belle Assemblee?  I mean...she’s wearing what we would call pantalettes, complete with a triple lace frill round each leg...not to mention sandals. The style itself is surprisingly simple, buttoning up the front. It’s cute as a bug, but certainly unlike any early 19^th century evening dress I’ve seen before. Since no text accompanied it. I dug around on-line and found this in Google Books:

No. 2.—A FASHIONABLE SEA-SIDE WALKING DRESS

A gown of white French cambric, or pale pink muslin, with long sleeves, and antique cuffs of thin white muslin, trimmed with Mechlin edging; made high in the neck, without a collar, and formed in points at the center of the bosom, with three rows of letting-in lace; confined down the front of the dress with small buttons; and hemmed round the bottom with three rows of deep Mechlin lace; made rather short, and worn over trousers of white French cambric, which are trimmed the same as the bottom of the dress. A cap composed of lace and light green silk trimming, tied under the chin, with a bunch of natural flowers in front. Hair in full ringlet curls, divided in the front of the forehead. A figured short scarf of pale buff, with deep pale-green border, and rich silk tassels; worn according to fancy or convenience; with gloves of pale buff kid; and sandals of pale yellow, or white Morocco, complete this truly simple but becoming dress.

And there you have it—the reason it’s unlike any other evening dress is because it’s actually a walking dress...and perfect for that. Evidently an engraver for La Belle Assemblee took a mental vacation while working on this print, and gave it an incorrect title. Can’t you see a fashionable young lady out in society, visiting Brighton at the end of the London season, tripping blithely down the sands (not that Brighton has a very sandy beach), kicking at the waves, picking up pretty seashells, and generally having a time of it?☺

The Biggest Beach Ball of All: Brighton

As summer vacation draws to a close and students head back to school here, I wanted to close my series on seaside resorts with the one most celebrated in romantic literature: Brighton. This sleepy little fishing village on the Channel due south of London looked doomed to die in the 1700s. Storms had damaged buildings, waves eroded the shoreline, and entire neighborhoods had fallen into the sea. People left in droves, and, by early 1700, fewer than 1,500 people were living in the area.

That all changed with the publication of a medical book in 1750. Dr. Richard Russell of Lewes wrote a dissertation on the use of seawater to treat glandular diseases like gout, which was attacking any number of his wealthy, sedentary clients. He thought bathing in and drinking sea water (along with a number of other interesting concoctions containing woodlice, cuttlefish bones, and crabs’ eyes) was therapeutic. Those clients flocked to nearby Brighton to be dipped and bathed.

So did the Prince of Wales. The young prince first visited Brighton in 1783 when he was 21 years old and doctors thought sea bathing might help reduce the swelling in his neck glands. He found the diversions, which included a theatre, two assembly rooms, and a covered market by then, far superior to the stuffy court of his father. In fact, the man who dipped him in the sea, Smoaker Miles, bossed him around like a son, to the point of grabbing him by the ear and dragging him back to shallower water when the sea was rough.

Suddenly, Brighton was all the rage. Between 1770 and 1795, over 600 new houses were built. The 1800s saw first a steam ship running between Brighton and France (post Napoleon, of course) and then a railway from London to Brighton. The Chain Pier opened in 1823. Though it was meant as a place to dock ships from France, the towers supporting the chains housed little shops selling sweets and souvenirs, and the visitors loved to promenade along its length. By 1848, more than 250,000 people were said to visit Brighton each year. To serve them in various capacities, the resident population rose to more than 65,000. The Grand Hotel was built in 1864 to accommodate visitors. An aquarium, museum, library, and general hospital quickly followed.

But the shining star of Brighton, one of the reasons so many of the aristocracy made the trek, was the chance of being invited to entertainments at the Prince’s pleasure palace, Brighton Pavilion. Come back on Friday to discover some of the secrets of this Taj Mahal of England and learn the names of the final two winners of our Nineteen Teen fan contest!



And speaking of which, Melanie, please contact Marissa at her website, because you are the winner of last Tuesday’s drawing for a Nineteen Teen fan!

Having a Ball at the Beach, Part 2: Fair Scarborough

First things first: the winner of one of our lovely Nineteenteen fans is Dara! Dara, please drop me a note via my website at lapetitefour.com/regina.html and I’ll mail that off to you. Thanks so much for your comments, everyone! Keep them coming! Any comment on any post in August is eligible to win.

So, let’s say you didn’t dash off to Lyme Regis or Cowes for the summer. England had plenty of beach towns in the nineteenth century. Scarborough in Yorkshire claims to be the first seaside resort, with bathing machines (covered wagons that were pulled into the surf to allow you to bath in privacy) as early as 1735. But it was the discovery of mineral waters at Scarborough’s South Bay that really put the elegant town on the map.

Scarborough is bisected by a headland that boasts its own castle. Thanks to German bombs in WWII, the castle is now a ruin, but, in the nineteenth century, it was still habitable and even boasted barracks for soldiers. So, not only could you get your fill of the sea, you could ogle men in uniform as well!



The mineral water spa itself was particularly impressive, not only in grandeur but in the fact that it kept rising from the ashes! Damage from storms and sea surges in 1808 and 1836 required the main building to be completely rebuilt. In 1827, the Cliff Bridge was opened, making it easier to reach the spa from the town. Architect Henry Wyatt built a Gothic Saloon with gorgeous turrets in 1839 that included a concert hall seating 500, a garden, a lovely promenade overlooking the sea, and an outside amphitheatre for orchestra concerts. But even these amenities proved too small for the crowds flocking to Scarborough.

In 1858, entirely new buildings opened to the public. These were on a grand scale and designed by Sir Joseph Paxton, the landscape gardener and architect responsible for the grounds of major country estates and London pavilions. His assembly hall could seat 2,000. His promenade was double the size of Wyatt’s and included a carriage road, a colonnade for shops, and another amphitheatre. According to spa historians, Scarborough Spa was the second most popular concert hall outside London at the time. Unfortunately, those wonderful buildings were destroyed by fire in 1876!

That didn’t stop the intrepid people of Scarborough. They rebuilt again in 1879 and opened the current historic buildings in 1880. The town still welcomes visitors intent on playing on the beach and indulging in the waters of the spa.

And you don’t need parsley, sage, rosemary, or thyme to go to fair Scarborough, either.

Having a Ball at the Beach, Part 1: Lyme Regis

You’ve probably noticed the theme: ice cream, air conditioning, bathing. We are definitely in summer mode on NineteenTeen! And what could be better for summer than your very own faux-nineteenth century fan? Remember, every post in August is a chance to win. Just put in a comment, and you’ll be entered into a drawing for that day. Marissa will draw for Tuesdays, and I get to draw for Fridays.

Each year, thousands of Americans pack up and head for the beach for a summer vacation. That isn’t anything new. Beginning in the eighteenth century and continuing into the nineteenth, many English families took an annual trip to the seashore too. At first it was only the wealthy who went, but as the century wore on, even the middle class families picked up stakes in July or August and hurried off to folic on the shore.

But going to the seashore didn’t necessarily mean swimming. We’ve talked about how bathing in seawater was an activity more meant to improve your health than to cool off or show off your swimming suit. Some people actually enjoyed looking out at the grandeur of the sea. But most of them flocked to the seashore to continue that grand pastime of seeing other people and being seen by other people.

A favorite haunt of Jane Austen's was Lyme Regis on the western coast of England. She wrote in Persuasion, “A very strange stranger it must be, who does not see charms in the immediate environs of Lyme, to make him wish to know it better.” Jane knew what she was talking about. She visited Lyme Regis many times with her family in the early part of the century.

One of the most picturesque features of Lyme Regis is The Cobb, a huge, curving breakwater supposedly built in the 13th century from massive oak beams and boulders. It was possible to walk on part of it, but it was the daring young lady who tried. Part way along The Cobb is a steep staircase called Granny’s Teeth. One of Jane’s characters capered down those steps and fell to her death.

Lyme Regis featured a grand hall where Assembly Balls were held; a lovely seaside promenade called The Walk where you could, well, walk and show off your outfits; and shops, tea rooms, and bookstores where you could enjoy a good gossip. As a dear friend likes to say, “Wherever you go, there you are!”

So, what do you think? Are you a girl after Jane’s heart who would dare walk The Cobb and gaze at the wild sea? Or would you be found promenading to your heart’s content and gazing at the other people doing the same on a sunny day along the shore?

Bathing Beauties

Summer is officially here, and, for many of us, that means time at the beach or around the municipal pool. Laying around in bathing suits and eying the opposite sex is as much part of the fun as actually cooling down in the water. Nineteenth century young folks flocked to water too, and for not-too-different reasons.

For one thing, bathing in salt water was supposed to be good for you. You’d pay a fellow with a specially designed cart covered in canvas to drive you out into the gentle surf. Inside you could change into your bathing costume, then dunk yourself in the water, safely hidden inside your little canvas tent.

If you look at some of the earliest costumes like these, you can see they aren’t much different from day dress. In fact, the caption on the one above reads “Evening promenade or sea bathing costume.” Later the bathing suits began to differentiate themselves from daily wear. For girls, they generally consisted of a short dress of cotton or flannel and flannel bloomers. Boys wore flannel one-piece units that looked a bit like long underwear. And forget any spandex. These babies sagged and bagged and dragged when they got wet. So there might have been some use to those private carts after all.

Of course, the main reason for seaside entertainment was to meet other young people. Many of the seaside towns hosted assemblies in the evenings, and the visiting families would throw balls or card parties or host picnics or teas. So if your Great-Aunt Ermintrude decided it absolutely necessary to treat her gout with a dip in the sea, why of course you’d accompany her for the chance to have a little fun too!

And speaking of fun, don’t forget to take a guess at Marissa’s mystery object in the post below. Correct guesses will be entered in a drawing for an autographed review copy of her upcoming release, Betraying Season, as well as a nifty tote bag that you can take with you to, um, the beach!